ATHENS: One in every four employees at the recently privatized Piraeus Port Authority (OLP) in Greece has expressed an interest in transferring to the broader state sector.
Greek media has confirmed both from the Shipping Ministry and from OLP itself that about 250 declarations of interest have been submitted to the competent department of the ministry in the context of a process that started in early July.
Interestingly, only four such cases regard administrative employees and engineers, as the great majority of requests come from technical staff eager to leave the Cosco-controled organization so as to stay in the public sector.
Sources from OLP and the ministry calculate that the applications may well reach 300 or even 350. Given that the number of OLP employees is 1,088, according to the latest presentation by the listed company’s management to the association of institutional investors, the potential departure rate could be as high as 30 percent.
In the meanwhile, there is an ongoing voluntary exit program and negotiations are under way for new collective labor contracts in the authority, as the last one, including its extension, expires in the early fall.
